I have to admit I am always entertained by the antics and tribulations of Italian politics in general. More so when situations occur such as the current episode wherein we have watched the two main winners in last March’s general election becoming strange bedfellows in trying to form a government, only for the President of the Republic to first thwart their efforts by objecting to open the door to one of the ministerial appointees and then letting the same appointee in through the window and hey, presto, Italy has a government. For how long?

It all boils down to stability. While a system of multiple parties has its attributes in the exercise of democracy, pluralism and the freedom of expression, it is also a veritable snare many a nation finds difficult to escape from. Coalitions have their value in networking ideas to be presented to the public, but when it comes to sharing power, it is suddenly a question of survival of the fittest. Hence, the greater value of an unimposed bi-party system which most often brings quick stability after the inevitable upheaval of a general election, particularly when there is a change of government.

Political stability everywhere offers boundless space for investment, for smoother legislation and governance that is more effective. Lose that or some of it and the consequences are immediate. It is why you would then find, such as we have here scrapping the bottom of their empty barrel, a band of frustrated losers and their hangers-on, among them one or two wearing dog-collars, presumably for spiritual reachability, seeking to undermine it. Perhaps the perfect example in our case was the June 2017 general election which carried such dangers, only for the voters to react in the best way they could – opting for continued political stability.

So is there no place for third parties? Of course there is. The question is whether the voters actually warm up to them and their ideas enough to award them with parliamentary seats. Parties with no such voice can hardly make an impact on society. For donkey’s years now, we have had AD, Malta’s own Green Party, but for all their initiative and often genuine concern on issues of national importance, they have only ever had one single MP and he happened to cross the floor of the House rather than being elected on a Green party ticket.

Way back in the Sixties, there was a profusion of ambitious third parties, mostly as a result of the politico-religious dispute that had some feeble-hearted individuals leaving the Church-victimised Malta Labour Party and others with a PN chip on their shoulders forming their little seashells. By 1966, however, they had vanished from the electoral radar. The rest has been more of the same – political parties that had more officials than voters, except a persistent yet despairing AD and, merely a year ago, the fruition of a new PD party made up of two disgruntled ex-Labour MPs. They agreed to form a “grand” coalition with Simon Busuttil’s Nationalist Party only to result in the two ex-Labour MPs winning their seats to the detriment of the senior partner in the coalition. No prize for who guesses which of the two made the wiser move.

The PD achievement, however, had no bearing on the political stability of the country since Joseph Muscat’s government was returned with the bonus of an increased majority. In strictly Opposition terms, the PD remains a PN sore thumb today.

We owe our bi-partite political setting to the UK’s own, of course. Ironically, in Britain itself there was a time in recent history when a chink in the armour was caused by the outcome of a hung parliament. In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron in fact had to rely on a third party (Liberal Democrat) support at the Commons to survive, a crutch he managed to discard in 2015 before making a quick Brexit himself out of the picture a year later.

Back in the land of pizza and prosecco, however, there have been appeals in the past by none other than Silvio Berlusconi for a bi-partite system that would give Italy the stability it so urgently needs to avoid dragging the rest of the EU with it into a new quagmire. He was not taken seriously and his Playmobil image today belongs to only the fourth political force. Multiple metamorphoses have contributed to the present crisis and few people think another general election could provide the answer.

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A Parliament of Tsiprases?

Another admission. I am not one for strict dress codes and have been so since I always found removing my college tie after school hours so exciting, but naive to others. Prefects were told to report boys who actually did that, but only the odd nerd played ball.

The issue in Parliament recently on the need of a dress code brought back this boyhood memory. Godfrey Farrugia was not unconvincing when he referred to and actually submitted evidence of past parliaments at which the people’s representatives wore tops like the one he donned for a recent parliamentary session. I honestly agree it is not what one wears in Parliament, the Law Courts, at the office, at school, in church etc. that matters, but how much grey matter he or she has up there.

This is yet another instance where one should not expect to impose his or her values on others, even on such trivial issues as formal attire. Take the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. He never wears a tie and is always the odd one out in those boring official EU photographs. It does not mean, however, he has less to offer. Excessive formality is not dignity, it is a quaint ritual.

Now that our parliamentarians are being allowed to at least wear a jacket with no tie, the Tsipras image will permeate. A shot of them with the old theatre columns nearby in the background would give it an even better Greek tinge.

How much happier the news from Mr Speaker, however, the project of the old railway tunnel below the House being turned into a unique complex of library, archives and lobby bar.

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Taken for a ride

One cannot help feeling that some of the foreigners among us are simply trying to take the authorities for a ride all the time. There is possibly the perception that our being so small does not entitle us to be monitoring and disciplining them like we do with our own erring citizens.

While in Paris an immigrant Malian instantly became a hero after saving a child from a horrible death, here we had a Malian who was given a one-year suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of using a friend’s passport when trying to fly to Italy where he has an expired registration as an immigrant. There have been several other similar cases.

Then we had a Tunisian attacking the police officer escorting him to hospital after injuring himself in a police cell where he was thrown after disturbing the peace at a public beach. Yet again, there have been several other similar cases.

Tunisia is a rich, benign Arab country less than an hour’s flight away from us. First plane out after treatment would have sent a better message.